Gamblers and Gallantry
by Kill-Pascals
Summary: The Umbrella, The Bridge, and the Prostitute.


He was trained with frightening precision to take in observe the entire situation before acting. _Think twice, act once. Analyze then attack. _Though this situation called for neither fight nor flight, it had intrigued him in the most peculiar of ways. He was traveling with his brother and cousin on the run from the law and themselves. His brother younger brother Sasuke who was barely fourteen and his assistant-in-arms cousin, Shisui. Itachi had asked that they all split up and try to find work for the day, and he was on his way through the steady rain, when he saw a women on the nearing bridge with the most peculiar hair color and unique frown he'd ever seen in his life. He crossed in silence, but found his feet stopping without his permission.

"Perhaps this is none of my business," The women turned to look at him with a surprised look. "This canal is not as deep as it appears. If you intend to throw yourself in and drown yourself, it would be wiser to choose another." She smiled and giggled into her hand.

"Did it look like I was going to throw myself in? I was just looking at the canal. That's all." He said nothing.

"What you don't believe me? My goodness...Did I have such a dejected look on my face?" turning to the canal her face dropped and her gaze lost it's focus into the shallow water. "Honestly, I would never do something that painful." She frowned and turned to start walking. "Thank you for the warning nonetheless. Goodbye." He watched her back as she continued in the opposite direction across the bridge wondering what would possess a suicidal woman to think of a canal of all places. He continued on his way cross the bridge and down the canal to a small eel stand. He sat fanning himself to cope with the flames of the grill and smiled upon the stranger's arrival.

"Excuse me." Itachi was a trained samurai, but he also had been taught manners.

"Oh! There you are. You're my part-timer worker, right? You're a life-saver!" Itachi shot him a very nonplussed look from underneath his straw hat.

"I was led to believe that this job involved blade work."

"Oh, there's cutting all right." He pointed to the knife on the copping block and Itachi almost wanted to roll his eyes. "Relax. In this rain, you won't be getting many customers."

"Oi, Wait!"

"Okay, It's all yours buddy!" He was already a ways down the rows waving his hand. The samurai sighed and sooner than later he was sitting there unoccupied and fanning himself to keep cool. The day bled into dusk and even with the cold rain it was still hot and sticky inside the lone stand on the canal's edge.

"One grilled eel, please." Itachi looked up from fanning himself. "Oh, you're that samurai from earlier. You actually run an eel stand?"

"No, I'm only here to-"

"Oh, that the one! I want that spirited one there." The mysterious pink haired woman from the bridge pointed to the fastest swimming eel in the bucket. He rolled hip sleeves and waited before diving to catch it, but it only slithered out of his hands and kept on with its laps. He tried and tried with a frustrated grunt and the woman laughed once again.

"Listen, you'll never catch an eel using brute force." Shuffled into the stand next to him and pushed him aside. She waited for several moment and he observed diligently. "You anticipate the eel's movement...Now!" With an impressive speed she dove into the bucket and grabbed the wiggling eel.

"Eels are like women. If you try to use force to hold them down, they'll only run away." She took a small nail and hammer and fixed it to the board with a small tap. "And then…" The woman gasped as Itachi pulled out his katana.

"Allow me to slice it."

"Wait just a minute! Eel's are Hamamatsu's pride and joy! It's bad luck to hack away at one with a huge thing like that! Slice it in half like this and remove the innards and then stick it with these." She kindly held up three sticks to skewers to him as continued the cutting job. Itachi couldn't fathom why she was still here helping him. A different woman approached the stand and he froze.

"What'll it be ma'am?"

"Three grilled eels, please." she replied.

"Coming right up! Here, start putting the pieces on skewers." A man approached asking for five eels and another woman asking for two.

"Get the sauce ready! Hurry!" She saw him struggling with the skewers and she showed him how to line them up. His inexperience frustrated him to no end, but he continued laying the skewered eels onto the grill and dipping them into the sauce.

"Step right up! Come one, come all! Doubles your energy and makes your family healthy! Get your grilled eel the specialty of Hamamatsu! How about some eel tonight miss!" A few hours later and the moon was high in the sky reflecting off of her forehead in an ethereal glow.

"Boy, business was booming...Not a bad night's work, I'd say. Hey, wait a minute, I didn't come here to work." She pressed the heel of her palm into her chin and shrugged. She supposed it was no harm done.

"Allow me to cook one for you." He set to work outing all he had taught her to work and laid a plate of the finished product before her.

"My, when you cook something, you make sure it's well and cooked. Well, I'll eat it anyway, you went through all that trouble." Clapping her hand together she thanked him for the food and ate.

"Wow, This is impressive. I've never eaten eel that tastes this bad before. Maybe that also takes talent in a matter of speaking." He slammed a cup on the table and looked away.

"Have some water."

"Tea is fine." She finished her food politely and stood to walk away.

"Thank You! This has given me some wonderful memories. Goodbye."

"Memories?" He looked after and she didn't meet his gaze dropping to the ground.

"I'm starting work at a brothel tomorrow. So today is the last day that I will be able to wander around freely. My husband fell into debt and I'm the collateral. Although, I suppose this sort of thing happens all the time, right? Well, I should go. Bye-bye." He wanted to call out to her and ask her a myriad of things, but he could only stare after her dumbly.

Else where Sasuke was returning from his part-time job as a server at a teahouse. The boy was only fourteen and labor jobs for someone as young, and only half trained as he was were unsuitable.

"I know I'm not going to like the answer, but what are you doing here, Shisui?" He stared at his cousin. "You were supposed to find work."

"I'm training. Can't you tell?"

"What?"

"Beetle sumo wrestling. I'm going to train this guy up properly and enter him in matches." Said cousin was currently tying a rhinoceros beetle to rock and forcing it drag it around.

"Weren't you going to work as a bodyguard?"

"Oh, that, I quit."

"What do you mean you quit?! What about our money!"

"Oh hush Sasuke-kun. I'm going to make a bundle with this bad boy."

"You moron! Get yourself a legitimate job!" Shisui dodged Sasuke's shoe to his head continued his "training"

"Excuse me." Itachi found the brothel the woman he's met the day before was supposed to working at seeing as how the red light district in this town was very small.

"You came all the way here just to return this?" Her face had been painted like a traditional geisha and, in the back of his mind somewhere; he thought that he liked her without it. She looked at the umbrella she's left at the eel stand the day before and smiled.

"Yes."

"Thank you. But I will not need that anymore. I'm not allowed to go into the outside world anymore. It could rain, or pour even, and it wouldn't make a difference to me. If you like, use it for yourself." Raising a hand through the wooden bars of the cage she smiled sadly and caressed his cheek. "Look at yourself you're robes are all soaked."

"Yoshino! You have a customer."

"Coming! I must go now. You shouldn't come around me anymore."

"One more thing. Your name. I never asked what it was." Itachi removed his hat. He tried his best to seem a least remotely friendly for he was genuinely interested in her.

"My name is Sakura. But, I have no need for that name anymore. What is yours?"

"It's Itachi." She bowed softly and smiled with a sad finality.

"Thank you, Itachi. Goodbye." He didn't like way she'd said as though she was saying goodbye for the last time. Itachi walked away from the display and Sakura left to tend to her customer where here thoughts were only filled with him. _Itachi. _He wouldn't be as rough as the man on top of her. _Sweaty_. Not as selfish, nor as callous a lover than the best on top of her. _Sticky_. He would praise every part of her and properly show her a good time. _Wet. _It mattered not to her that he was likely younger than her being that she was already twenty-six. He would be good to her. As the slow torture that was this man encompasses her she only thought of him as her very dignity was striped away. _Save me…_

~•~

"Yeah baby! If you don't win, you don't eat!"

"Why the hell do I have to come here and watch a couple of bugs duke it out?" Sasuke grumbled as the men hollered and cheered around the ring. He's been on his way to work when Shisui had grabbed him and rushed off to match. He was now in some crowded ring with overexcited men watching two bugs fight in a tiny pen. It was pitiful."

"Nii-san would have never made me come here."

"Get in there, Rodriguez! Get your ass in there!

"Just because he made it drag around a rock for a day doesn't mean it's gonna-"

"Yeah!

"No way!" Sasuke crawled closer and sure enough Rodriguez the Rhinoceros Beetle had knocked the other off the stand and out of the ring.

"It actually won…" Men groaned around them and Shisui greedily collected everyone's bets.

"We're going to be so rich Sasuke-_kun_." Sasuke hated the way he said his name/

~•~

"Did I forget something else at the stall?" Itachi stood with Sakura's umbrella the next day, now opened, and shook his head.

"No."

"You came here for a good time then." He could tell she was barely frowning. "I'm sorry. I appreciate you visiting, but it's interfering with business so, please, leave. I don't have time to talk." She hesitated in speaking again, before looking away. "Please, don't come here again." Itachi was about to say something when, he was interrupted by a fat man with a greasy mustache and money hungry eyes.

"Welcome sir! Have you spotted a girl that strikes your fancy? Act now and-"

"I have no money." Itachi affirmed.

"We have a window-shopper boys!" Men with swords rushed the lobby to the outside wooden display cage and surrounded him. Sakura only looked away with shame.

"We don't run this business to give some broke samurai free eye-candy, got it? If you need some action, come back with some money!" His immediate reaction was to withdraw his sword, for an unsourceable anger had overtaken him, but he couldn't react, so he stayed still at their mercy. The guards came upon him knocking him down and beating him, but he silently endured ignoring the pain and asking himself why he wasn't fighting back. Asked himself why he wasn't silencing these men with the edge of sword. _Why wasn't he fighting for that women in that display?_

"Itachi!" Sakura called out to him, but the shame of being beaten and not retaliating on top of the impromptu rejection had socked his body into immobility.

"What's your problem!" a man spit.

"You're bad for business." Another jab.

"Don't show your face around here again!" the men laughed at him and spat into his face, but he only closed his eyes and breathed. _Why?_

~•~

"So what do you have to say now? _Sasuke-kun"_ Shisui taped the two golden chips on Sasuke's forehead as he calculated with an abacus.

"Well, after we pay back the guy for letting us stay here…" Sasuke fiddled with the abacus before sighing. "We still have tons to spare! Let's go eat." before Shisui could protest the door slid open revealing a battered Itachi.

"Nii-san! What happened? How did you get so beat up?" Sasuke was immediately upon his brother who had been returning late and leaving early mornings.

"It is nothing."

"Obviously it's not nothing! Who did this to you?" Itachi waved Sasuke over and poked him in the head.

"It is nothing." he affirmed. His gaze crossed to Shisui who was admiring his gold coins.

"That money. When did you-" Itachi looked the coins with what a narrowed eye on the normally stoic mans face it an expression should send alarm bells through one's head.

"Hey it's my money. I won it fair and square in beetle sumo wrestling." Shisui pouted and shielded the pouch.

"Let me borrow it." Shisui glared.

"Why?"

"Yeah, what do you need it for, Aniki?" Sasuke looked up innocently at his brother and blinked.

"I need to buy a women." Shisui and Sasuke looked at Itachi as though the Shogun had requested to marry him.

"What?!"

~•~

"You! I told you not to come here anymore!" The manager and the guards came rushing at him again, but he only smirked. Arrogance was a small curse among his clan. "Back again for another lesson, huh? Weren't we clear? You that eager to get your ass kicked again?" Itachi wordlessly flashed one of Shisui's gold coins and the look the men's face changed. The bowed gestured their arm in the direction of the entrance with vulture like smiles. All the women bowed respectfully and it made him sick just thinking about all the reasons why these women were here; probably against their own will.

"Welcome sir!" They showed him into the lounge of the brothel offered him tea and slippers.

"Is Yoshino the girl you've selected sir?" He nodded. "Um, allow me to take you swords. House rules, sir." Itachi hesitated, before handing over both of his katana to the greasy man. "Enjoy your stay." Itachi made his way up to the top of the stairs where Sakura stood waiting for him. Taking his hand in her warm ones, she led him to the outdoor hallway and inside the shoji door at the end. Itachi walked in a daze. He couldn't understand why this woman had so much of his attention. Why her impractical pink hair and foreign green eyes had possessed him to spend all this money on her. He supposed he would find out in a matter of minutes.

~•~

"What do you think he meant by that? What did Nii-san mean, buying a women?" _Still innocent._

"I'm glad to hear it. Aren't you?"

"Hear what?"

"Itachi has never shown much interest in girls for as long as I've known him. I mean he's still a man and men have needs, but his face was so serious. I was even starting to getting a little suspicious."

"Of what?" Sasuke turned from the window and looked at the sprawled out Shisui playing with his beetle.

"That maybe he's a homo."

"No way!"

"Well, this is good news. It's a load off my back."

"How can you say that?!"

"You're jealous." Shisui smirked.

"Of what?! W-Why would you think such a thing!" Sasuke had turned as red as tomato by now and was shrilling like a baby kitten.

"Cause you're precious Aniki isn't spending as much time as he used to with you. Shisui's smile widened and he spoke evilly. "I bet right about now he's purchased her and is doing all sorts of things to her." Sasuke shifted uncomfortably and picked at the fraying tatami mats of their room.

"...Like what." Shisui burst with laugher

"Pervert! You really want to know what your brother gets up to at a brothel."

"Well who wouldn't?! Since you thought he was gay!"

"This conversation is giving me a bad feeling…" Shisui mumbled sobering quickly

"It's not like I'm interested or anything, It's just ever since we left the clan compound he's been acting suspicious. Never telling me where we're going back or what we're even doing traveling. Itachi's always been reclusive, but never this much. And now with a woman entering the picture. I'm not sure what to think anymore.

"Have some faith in your brother Sasuke."

"Of course I do!" But light snores were already coming from the older Samurai.

"Jerk."

~•~

In the low light they sat across from one another, Sakura was all forms of attractive and alluring. True to her job, she wasn't bad at it.

"Would you like some sake?"

"No."

"Okay." She reached for his hand once again. Her kimono slipped off her shoulder a bit and he reached to replace it to its spot.

"It is alright. We can stay like this."

"But, you're paying so much money for time with me…" She gazed out the window and frowned. "It doesn't look like this rain with stop anytime soon, eel man."

"I do not own that eel stand." He defended. "I'm on a journey and I was only working there to earn money for lodgings."

"Oh, so you're a traveler?"

"Yes. But I've been held up in Hamamatsu for a while now because of this rain."

"Oh, I see… As soon as this rain stops, you'll leave."

"...I hope that the rain will never stop."

"Huh?"

"Then, I would be able to stay here." She giggled demurely behind her hand. He was confused. "I did not mean that as a joke.

"I'm sorry…it's just that no one talks like that in this day and age any more." She continued her laughter and Itachi decided that he like her smile and wanted to continue to see it more often. It was a nice change from the gloominess of the rain. The silence stretched on and he was content in just looking at before he spoke.

"Sakura-san, don't you hate this job?"

"Sure, there are things that I hate about it. But the thing is, I laugh when I'm actually sad. I'm frustrated, so I laugh it off because what can I do?" Sakura moved closer to him and leaned her forehead into his shoulder. "But, I don't think I could ever hate you." She came closer and closer until they were breaths apart and she kissed him. Kissed him because she wanted to and not because he had paid for her. Kissed him with all the passion she could muster right then because something about this man kept pulling her under.

"Are you sure you're fine just, sitting here?" He smiled softly and crossed the room to the futon and stretched across exposing her long and pale legs. With only the dim light of the lantern as a sanctuary from the wet and dark night, he joined her.

The next day at work, Sasuke was busting the cups from a table when he overheard the deep and gruff voice of the brothel manager.

"I swear, my business is terrible because of this rain. The only business I've had today is some samurai with a ponytail. He's got a thing for Yoshino, my new girl." He sighed irately. "She was sold to me to cover her husband's debts. A wife can't file for divorce against her husband so, I guess it was her bad luck to be stuck with a lousy husband." Sasuke couldn't help, but think that the description had fit his brother and he wondered if this was really going to become a serious issue.

~•~

Itachi stared at her back as she combed her long pink hair in front of the mirror. The wind chimes tinkled outside the room in the early morning and he thought it was fitting that his upset mood matched the overcast sky. He's come a few more time after his visited the week before and he noticed her increasingly saddened gaze before it was replaced and brighten when he visited. She would smile for him differently than the other men and it warmed his chest in a primordially masculine way.

"Let's leave this place." He blurted.

"What are you saying now." She sighed as she continued her hair care. His own was haphazardly strewn across the pillows and he frowned.

"I can't let you do this anymore..."

"Don't make it sound so simple. Do you have any idea how much it cost's to buy a prostitutes freedom? Even if there were a hundred of you it still wouldn't be enough." She paused and looked back at him. Back when I got married, my parents were happy that I had married into money. But my husband developed a gambling problem and amassed a mountain of debt. The next thing I knew, the young wife of the textiles merchant had became the town whore." He came behind her and buried his lips into her naked shoulder. She sighed at his ministrations and was tempted to start another round with him. She turned and caressed his cheek. "Please, do me a favor and let it go. I appreciate the sentiment, but talk like that is just a pipe dream." He was interrupted in his speech yet another time as the manager came around the room.

"Beg your pardon sir, but Yoshino has a visitor."

"I'll be right there."

"Unfortunately our time together has come to an end again."

"Sakura-"

"Please, go home. I'll wait for you to return when you so wish." She stood and dressed leaving him alone to think. Coming shorthanded for once in his life he dress and left before noticing the lovers' quarrel down the hall.

"C'mon Sakura. I'm begging you. Spot me a little.

"You do not really believe I have anything to spare after working here, do you?" Sakura gaped at him in disbelief and her eyebrows creased in anger.

"Don't be like that Sakura…Customers slip you a little under the table, don't they?" The man was not handsome and did not seem to posses many redeeming qualities so the fact she'd married him was lost to him.

"Why don't you give up gambling and make a honest living Hanjiro."

"What did you say?" Before she could even regret her words his hand sailed through the air and connected with her cheek with a sharp smack. She was knocked to the ground by the sheer force and touched it lightly feeling a bruise that would soon form.

"Still got a problem with my gambling now? Wanna leave me?" He grasped a handful of her hair and dragged her to face level. "Sorry baby, but I don't feel like letting you go just yet." Sakura cried out as her body hung from her hair, trying to claw him off of her. Just when she thought she hair would come out of her head his grip loosened and she gaped at the sight before him. Itachi had her husband restrained and he'd been pressed face first into the wooden floors of the hallway with his arm bent unnaturally behind his back.

"What do you think you're doing, you bastard. I'm her husband, I can do whatever I want!" Itachi grip on the man's shoulder only tighten before Sakura's whisper reached his ear.

"Let him go."

"Sakura-" He really was tired being interrupted.

"That's enough, just let him go!" With a frown he released his grip on the man and he stood straightening his robes.

"I'm gonna bleed you dry as long as you live you, you hear me? Remember that!" He rolled his arm and spat at her feet before walking away.

"Go home Itachi-san!" Before he could say anything, she had run and slammed the shoji door to their shared room closed. With a small sigh he left back to his lodging where Sasuke and Shisui were and thought of way to avoid their pestering questions.

~•~

"Where are you going?" asked Sasuke. He stood in the doorway in the night as he'd finished putting up Sakura's umbrella. Sasuke noticed the missing sword from Itachi's side and he scrunched his face anger. "Back to see that Yoshino lady again? Why? It's not like I don't understand why you would feel sorry for her, Aniki, but-"

"It is not out of pity."

"You aren't seriously telling me you are in love with this women, are you? She's a prostitute! What would mother say?" _Nothing now, _he thought. "...You aren't going to run away with her, right?"

"If I don't come back…I want the two of you to continue the journey together."

"Nii-san, what journey! I don't even know what we're doing out here! You haven't told me anything and I haven't seen you in weeks because you've been working and then spending all your money to go see some woman at a whorehouse! You can't be serious…" He stood straight and stared Itachi right in the eye. "If you leave, I'll never forgive you." Itachi crossed the length to his little brother and smiled softly. He poked his forehead and turned away.

"Forgive me, Sasuke."

"You jerk!" But the rain had already covered his voice. He immediately went to the brothel and checked in.

~•~

"Welcome-" Before Sakura could say more he was upon her so fast and desperately it scared her. She eagerly returned his affections, but was confused as to why it deemed as though he was kissing her as if this was the last time.

"What in the world..?" Itachi assaulted her neck and collared nipping a biting bringing up marks that marked her as his.

"I-Itachi. Ah!" The overload of it all was overwhelming and she submitted. He wasn't hurting her and something obviously troubled him so she lowered them to the mattress succumbing to everything he was.

"Is everything alright." He look up at her from her navel with measuring look and sighed.

"No."

"Okay." And she let him have her. He went slower savoring and memorizing every crevice and special feature of her just incase he never got his chance again." When she was entirely spent, he lit one of the complementary cigarettes and inhaled the leafy smoke. Exhaling he sat down by the window and observed the security below. Not as tight as he thought, but still troubling. Sakura came over as well and draped her naked body beside his stroking his chest and enjoying the steady thump of his heartbeat against her ear.

"What's the matter?" She stated

"We're leaving."

"Not this again."

"Pack what you need." Still surveying the patrolling guards, he put out the cigarette and he began ripping her work kimono.

"I can't leave...It's hopeless. Even if I manage to get away, they'll follow me to the ends of the earth." Kissing his collarbones she tempted him to stay longer.

"There's a divorce temple across the river. If you ask for help there, they might help you."

"I can't do that. Even if they take me in, it will be like being a prisoner all over again. I won't be able to leave for three years. Neither will I be able to meet you like this. I would rather wait for you here." She threaded her bare arms up his back and around his neck. "Please, I beg you. Don't do this." He turned towards her and held her chin in his hands.

"That day when I met you on the bridge...You really were planning to kill yourself, weren't you." She sighed and walked to retrieve her yukata from before she'd started work.

"I was. If you hadn't happened by when you had, I would be…" Shaking her head she slipped on the familiar wear and smiled. "Let's go. Together." Itachi tied the strips of clothing together and threw it over the banister before they heard the house manager knock.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your good time sir, but your time is up. You need to-" Sakura moaned wantonly as she gestured for him to climb over.

"Ah! You're so good!"

"Give me an extension please." Itachi called.

"Faster!"

"Take your time sir!"

"I'll go down first and wait for you." Itachi whispered.

"But…"

"It'll be alright."

Sakura nodded and he slipped down the cloth faster, internally cursing at the burn it caused.

"Now sir about that extension fee…" The manager slowly slid the door open just as Sakura climbed over the banister. "What do you think you're doing! Come back here, you bitch!"

"Sakura!" Sakura looked down at Itachi closed her eyes tightly. Trying not to think too much, she released her hold on the makeshift rope and waited with baited breath for the pain of the ground to hit, but all she felt were muscled arms who's hold was steadfast.

"Run!" He dragged to her around the back and down the dark alleyways at a breakneck pace.

"We've got a runner! Get her!" They could hear the sounds of the guards and the clattering of their sandals.

"Come back here!" The guards cut the two off and they were surrounded them. Itachi shielded Sakura and she whimpered.

"Listen you two. In this world you don't always get what you want." The manager's smile made her nauseas and he nodded under his umbrella at the two before the guards were upon the two. Itachi pushed Sakura to the wall before reaching for his swords that weren't there. He was left to fend them off with hand-to-hand combat and began the dance of dodging and kicking them away. A little ways away Sasuke and Shisui ran after the duo.

"I thought you said you would never forgive him."

"Forget what I said just hurry up!" Shisui laughed as he saw Sasuke fretful look running as far as his lanky legs would carry him to his brother. He'd felt it a little after his older brother had departed that something was terribly amiss. He would never leave his swords at home so why start now? She cackled as they continued their mad dash through the midnight street of Hamamatsu. They plunged into the fray and Shisui went right up to him.

"I don't think I've ever seen you so pathetic before." Itachi bit his tongue against his older cousin.

"Itachi!" Sasuke tossed his brother his swords and he caught them skill fully before dragging Sakura apart from the wall.

"Make sure you pay be back alright?" Unlike Itachi was mostly a pacifist despite his profession, Shisui lived and relished bloodshed. He was on the guards slicing and impaling before any of them knew what to think. Bodies fell left and right in the mud and puddles of the rainy night and Itachi didn't have to be told twice.

"Hurry!" He tugged Sakura away from the scene and toward the dock on the river a few miles away. Her legs gave out a mile in and he hoisted her into his arms before continuing.

"Sakura!" Her husband appeared in the early morning mist as they arrived and he was helping her into the small boat.

"You aren't trying to run away from me, are you?" He looked desperate and she almost wanted to go him seeing as how she still did love him in a small place in her heart.

"I've had enough of living my life under your thumb Hanjiro. I'm taking my life back." She pulled the money she's earned from the brothel and threw it at his face. "That's the price of the woman that used to be your wife!" Tear sprung to her eyes and Itachi thought about the beauty of a crying maiden before a few guards caught up with them.

"There she is! Get her!" Itachi pushed the boat away from the dock and Sakura's eyes widened grasping at his robes before she dislodged completely. She kissed him with all the fervor she could muster and she whispered the three cursed words that he's wanted to say since their time on the bridge.

"I love you." He looked away and pushed the boat away this time completely dislodging it from the dock and across the river to the temple.

"I love you too." He said. She smiled and waved as he turned his back to face the guards,

"Itachi! Thank you." He smiled for what felt like the first time in months since he's murdered his clan and swiftly slashed through the last of the guards. The mist was beginning to clear and the sun shone brightly once again on the bridge ending the rain.

~•~

for thise who caught o. Yes! This is a interpretation of Itachi and Sakura from Samurai Champloo! Miss that show so much but I felt Jin and Shino were perfect for the crossover. Thanks for reading! Comments give me life! :)


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